


Brown Paper Packages

by joyeusenoelle



Series: Laurie [1]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joyeusenoelle/pseuds/joyeusenoelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ouranophobia: The fear of Heaven.</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. Ouranophobia

I recognized Alfie's number on the cell phone; even if we weren't close enough to have his number actually in my address book, I still knew roughly what to expect when I picked up. So I did. "Hello?" Miss Manners says that even when you know who's calling, it's polite to give them a chance to introduce themselves.

"Miss Habich?" Alfie asked. "Your voice sounds different."

The accent was slipping. I mentally corrected. "A lapsus linguae, I am afraid. What can I do for you, Alfie?" If your caller does not introduce himself, there's no point in playing along.

"I picked something up tonight I thought one of your friends might like. A souvenir from a seventeenth-floor job over on the upper east. Hell of a climb if you don't have a keycard." 

I laughed gamely. "Well, I would like to see it, Alfie. When shall we meet?" 

He paused. "Say an hour. At the Final Destination Diner."

I'd never been there, but I knew of it. "All right, Alfie. I'll be there. Watch for me."

"See ya, Miss Habich." The phone clicked, and I flipped it closed and set it on the end table. I liked my phone, and I'd seen too many people lose theirs to careless tossing.

The Final Destination was, to my recollection, a boxcar diner set back under a freeway -- not my usual sort of place, but in my line of work one learns to expect to travel anywhere for business. I looked down at myself. A dress in emerald, with a low scoop and of a length that would have scandalized the city fifty years earlier. low black pumps, comfortable from use but still strikingly unscuffed, the work of a gem of a cobbler I'd met long ago as he tried to pass information to the mob. Gloves, short, black, and calfskin.

Exactly right for the night I'd had in mind, but precisely wrong for a boxcar diner in the shadow of an overpass -- a shame, but business should come first. I pulled back my hair into a loose ponytail, lost the going-out clothes, and found something that better suited a night in the darker side of town.

*****

Alfie clearly didn't recognize me when he walked in the door of the Final Destination. It was the outfit; we'd met perhaps half a dozen times, but always in clothes like what I'd been wearing when he called. I'd had plenty of time to take a cab down after I managed to come up with street clothes, and fifteen minutes ago I'd sat in the corner table next to the kitchen, my back to the wall, and ordered a coffee. It still hadn't arrived.

I raised the brim of my baseball cap, looked over the top of my sunglasses, and caught his eye. My gaze is hard to ignore, even in a crowded, noisy place like this, and he nodded and made his way over. I gestured to the chair opposite me. "Thanks for coming, Miss Habich," he said, sliding into the seat. 

"Oh, anything for a friend, Alfie." I smiled broadly and pushed my sunglasses back up. "You said you had something to show me?"

Alfie nodded. "It's pretty special, I think." He pulled a long, narrow package from under his jacket -- I hadn't noticed the bulge -- and set it on its end on the table. It was wrapped in brown paper that disguised its true shape, but it looked like it had a base, and at least from the shape of the paper, it had an odd shape, too, with curves coming off a main stem. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

I let him continue. "I told you, I got it on a job up on the upper east side. I'd put my hands on a keycard so I thought I'd go up and see what I could pick up while the lady who lived there was gone. Lots of jewelry, some nice clothes -- not your size, no offense."

"None taken."

"I was looking around and I saw this thing in a glass case on a pedestal. I didn't see anything like alarms, so I tried lifting the case and it came right off -- I guess it was just a display piece or something. So I put it in my bag and took off; figured if there was a silent alarm, maybe, I didn't want to be there when the cops showed up. I got out to the elevator just in time, too -- I heard the other elevator get to that floor just as my car's door closed." 

"Nobody saw you?"

"If they did, they musta been invisible. I didn't see anybody there, and I was only there a couple minutes. In and out."

I nodded. It sounded like a good scoop. "Show it to me."

He put his hand to the package to pass it to me, and I froze. Two people had just walked into the Final Destination boxcar, but they hadn't bothered to dress down for the event. The shorter of them was a man, broad-shouldered and trim, in a reasonably nice suit -- off the rack, but not one of the cheap ones -- and what looked from this distance like Steve Madden boots. He had a short haircut and a frown the size of Central Park, and I looked away at his partner as he scanned the room. His friend, a tall, slender woman in a long blue sleeveless dress (again, prêt-à-porter), matching Choo heels, and a necklace that fairly cried "diamonds". I spent a long moment wondering who'd pay to put their hands on it -- or her.

I leaned in close. "Alfie, put the package away as subtly as you can. We're going to go in different directions -- you through the near door, I through the kitchen. Don't stop until you get onto a subway car. Change trains at least twice, then go straight home. Tomorrow at 1:30 PM we will meet at the Herald Square station, northbound F platform. You'll have the package with you." I pulled my sunglasses down so Alfie could see my eyes, and my voice grew forceful. His eyes widened. "This is not optional. You do not have a choice." The voice softened again. "Do you understand?"

He nodded, and pulled the package back into his jacket just as the man at the door said "YOU!" He didn't need to shout; it felt like his voice was just all capital letters, all the time.

Fuck. He'd seen me. He'd seen my eyes, and he'd known. I hissed "Go!" at Alfie, and jumped out of my chair, bolting through the double doors to the kitchen.

The trouble at this point was that I had no idea if the kitchen had an exit.

I pulled my sunglasses off and shoved them in the pocket of my hoodie. I shoved past cooks and waiters -- not easy with my current slight frame - and with each one I put force into my voice. "You want to stop anyone chasing me." And they did; it was so easy to tell people what was right, correct their misapprehensions and misplaced priorities, especially in a place like this where everyone was so overworked that they barely had the willpower left to cook dinner or find the bus stop. It felt nice, too; I got to do people a service, taking decisions off their plate so that they could focus on the important things.

I heard the man say "YOU GO AFTER HIM," and then he was through the swinging kitchen doors. The waiters and cooks did their jobs valiantly, but the guy pursuing me had a linebacker look to him. The distance between us closed rapidly; I never was much good at sports.

My eyes found the door and I tried to vault over an island to get to it. Unfortunately, the island I'd chosen was a flat-top grill, and although I made it clumsily over, I took a vicious burn to the palm of my hand in the process. Cursing, I turned to look at the man behind me, putting even more force into my voice. "You don't want me. You want Alfie. He's the one with the package."

He stopped, his eyes darting between me and the door to the restaurant, and I repeated myself. With a grimace that took up his entire mouth and most of his eyes, he turned and walked back to the main body of the Final Destination. "Fine," he said quietly. "I'll check in with Ilene." As he went, I backed up to the door, pressing it open with the small of my back.

The alarms, flashing lights, and sprinklers going off did not seem to improve the man's mood as he trudged out to find his friend. They certainly didn't improve mine.

So much for business as usual tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouranophobia: The fear of Heaven.


	2. Harpaxophobia

It took me about an hour to get home; I'd hit a major street as soon as possible, to blend in with the crowd, but I hadn't been able find an unoccupied cab to save my life, and the subways had felt too vulnerable. Even though the man chasing me had agreed that he'd be better off going after Alfie, I'd still felt nervous and uncomfortable out in the open, and so I'd made all haste getting home. I'd been especially thankful that I'd worn sneakers instead of those beautiful black pumps. I already had a burned hand; blisters would just have been too much.

I fumbled for the key - it was in the burned hand's pocket - and, finally, opened the door. No sign of anyone else having been here since I'd left; I wasn't the type to tape a hair across the door latch, or leave flour on the floor, but tonight, it was comforting to know that nobody had found out where I lived and decided to show up first.

I shucked off the hoodie, sat on the sofa, and considered my options. I didn't want to have to go out again tonight; exposing myself to Stocky Intense Man was low on my list of priorities. I knew Guillaume, a nurse at one of the local hospitals, could heal me, but as kind as he was, he was also not above selling the location of my apartment to the highest bidder. Mina would be in bed by now; she traded her evenings asleep for being able to start work at six in the morning, and since she was the smuggler's-friend sort of mechanic, I had no intention of imposing on her. Zulayka would be awake, and she'd been here before, but I'd owe her a favor, and that was rarely a pleasant experience.

This, I supposed, was why I had an extensive first-aid kit in the bathroom.

I winced as I thoughtlessly used my burned hand to push myself up off the couch - at least the leather was cool to the touch - and made my way back to the bathroom. I checked the expiration date on the burn cream (still a year off, good), then slathered it liberally on my injured palm. Some gauze atop the cream, then cloth tape around the whole thing, and... well, it was better than the raw burn, anyway. Tomorrow I'd stop by Mina's garage and ask for her assistance, but tonight, at least, I'd be okay.

As I taped down the end of the cloth strip, there was a knock on the door, and I froze. The knock came again; it wasn't a pounding, like Stocky Intense Man would have used, but a polite, shave-and-a-haircut knock. I crept as silently as I could to the front door, and peered through the peephole.

It was the woman who'd been with Stocky Intense Man - he'd called her "Ilene". I set the chain and cracked the door an inch or so. "Can I help you?"

Ilene smiled, perhaps a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry for the impression James left with you. He can be... strident."

So that was his name. "I understand strident. But why are you here?"

"I need to talk to you about your friend Alfie," she said, and I froze. She must have seen the muscles tense, because she added, "I'm not upset with you at all. You've done nothing wrong that I know about. But I think Alfie has, and I need to find out what's going on. May I come in?"

I thought for a minute. On the one hand, I wasn't sure I wanted a friend of James's in the apartment. On the other... if they'd wanted me dead or hurt, James would have just come himself.

I unchained the door and opened it, gesturing for Ilene to come in. She did so, looking around at the decor. "This is an impressive apartment for someone in your position."

"I'm very good at making sure I get a cut of any deal I broker - and I broker an awful lot of deals." I glanced into the kitchen. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, thank you," she said. "I can't imagine that I'll be here very long."

"At least have a seat," I replied, gesturing to the couch. She did take that suggestion and sat down carefully, while I perched on the edge of a perpendicular easy chair. "What can I do for you, Ilene?"

Her eyes widened fractionally at the mention of her own name. "Last night, a number of valuable objects went missing from my friend Delia's apartment."

"I'm afraid I don't know Delia."

"I think Alfie does. Or did. In the course of the robbery, she was killed, and her body was mutilated."

It was my turn to widen my eyes. "I hadn't heard that."

Ilene nodded. "It was... shocking to return to her penthouse last night and discover her body." She looked me straight in the eye and swallowed. "And there was no disturbance, so it must have been a human who killed her."

Disturbance. So she knew what kind of creature I was, and she was confirming to me that she was, at least, of the same class, if not the same make.

I nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss." 

"Thank you. But I'm not here to commiserate. I think your friend Alfie killed my friend Delia. At the very least we can show that he was there last night. We'd like to collect him for questioning."

I took a guess. "Your kind of questioning, Ilene, or the Malakite's?"

"Well-spotted. James had a deeper connection to Delia, but I'd rather not hurt Alfie if I don't have to. I think I can get him to talk to me without violence or harm to him."

"Alfie has never seemed like a killer to me, Ilene, but I can understand your desire to find Delia's murderer. I doubt that he would mind answering a few questions for you." I thought back to my conversation with him. "He mentioned that Delia wasn't there when he was, and that as he was getting into the elevator to go down, he heard the other elevator car arrive on the floor. Perhaps that was Delia coming home - or maybe it was her killer coming up to find her."

"Interesting. I hope for your sake and his that he's telling the truth - and that you are." She clearly realized the words were ill-chosen as soon as she said them. "I mean -"

"Don't worry about it. Your side has some rather remarkable preconceptions about us, but I'm not offended." I smiled genially.

Ilene coughed quietly. "Anyway - would you mind letting me know when you plan to next meet with him? James told me on my way up that he managed to lose Alfie in a crowd, and I suspect that it will be easier to get him to come with us if he's already with someone he trusts."

"If he finds out I sold him out, he'll never trust me again. He's a good second-story man; I'd hate to lose him."

She shook her head. "I promise to you that we will not let him know about your involvement. For all he'll know, we were tracking you, and just happened to find him."

"And you promise you won't hurt him?"

"I can't promise on James's behavior." She paused. "It's occurred to me that I don't know your name."

I extended a hand. "Ursula Habich," I said. She took it gently, her dark skin contrasting nicely with my pale German tone.

"A pleasure, Ursula. I do promise," she said, letting my hand go, "that I will not hurt him, and that I will do my best to prevent James from doing so. Is that good enough?"

I sighed. "I guess it will have to be. Alfie and I are meeting at the Herald Square station tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 PM, on the northbound F platform." I looked Ilene in her startlingly blue eyes. "Please treat him well. And let me know when you have the information you need."

Ilene stood and nodded. "I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harpaxophobia: The fear of being robbed.


	3. Praxicopephobia

I spent the night in bed, if perhaps not sleeping. The memory of James and Ilene arriving at the diner, of the chase through the kitchen and my walk home, and of Ilene's visit to my apartment replayed countless times in my head as I stared at the ceiling or the insides of my eyelids. Sometimes I changed the memories, to see what the logical outcome would have been; tiny white lies to myself in the name of curiosity and testing theories never really hurt anyone. But every time the outcomes came out the same. I couldn't find a way to have let myself win that situation, at least not with the pieces I had -- unless I simply hadn't shown up when Alfie called. But then the angels would have Alfie and the object he was trying to fence, and I didn't like the idea of him in their hands without Ilene's promise not to harm him.

It had taken me years of rising slowly through New York's financial ranks -- perhaps more quickly than an average human might, but then, I could take advantage of only eating and sleeping when it was necessary -- in order to afford this apartment, and I liked it quite a bit. One of the things I liked about it was that I was on a relatively high floor, higher than many of the surrounding buildings, and so when the sun rose in the morning, my east-facing bedroom window caught it early. When those hot rays spilled across my green silk sheets, I sighed and rose, gathering a robe around me and going to look out over the city. Already the roads and sidewalks were filled, and I watched the people scurry for a while. Millions upon millions of people in my city, and perhaps a hundred of them were celestials... and I had managed to attract the attention of a pair of them. 

I supposed, to myself, that that was the price I paid for being involved with the criminal element. There were still tens of thousands of criminals in New York -- not the petty sort who had records for stealing a candy bar or double parking, the type who made lives out of flouting the law -- but if an angel happened to pay attention to anyone in New York, odds were it was a lawbreaker. And although I, personally, broke no laws, my association with those who did put an effective spotlight on me.

I tried to put it out of my head. A shower (another of the perks of my apartment: the shower was spectacular, and I had to assume that they had extra water tanks installed somewhere nearby, since the water pressure was to die for), some essential grooming of the human vessel (the sooner the boys in Technology engineered a body whose hair didn't grow, the better), and a light breakfast (part of the morning ritual: half a grapefruit and a bowl of granola), and I at least felt prepared to face James and Ilene at the subway station.

I pulled an inconspicuous outfit from my closet. It would have been easy to set clothing to stun, but given that I was going to be rendezvousing with not only a known criminal but two known enemy agents, I decided that discretion, as it so rarely is, was in fact the better part of valor this time, and pulled out a muted cerulean sweater, a pair of tight blue jeans, and a coral belt. The hiking shoes I pulled to finish the look weren't exactly at the top of fashion, but they were comfortable and good for a quick escape, and they had a subtle lift to the heel that would help me feel more in control of the situation. I put it on, and turned in the mirror until I'd seen it from as many angles as I needed to; it was, ultimately, an excellent assembly for today, as I still looked good without standing out. Earrings that set off the belt, and a silver bracelet, and I was in business.

It was not until I put my keys in my black everyday purse that I realized that I wasn't meeting Alfie for another five hours. Damn.

I considered going out anyway, but given the encounter of the previous night, I decided that I preferred the relative security of my apartment against angelic intrusion. I was not unused to being watched, or even to being in dangerous situations -- but I was used to that surveillance and danger coming from mortal sources. It had not escaped my notice that while Ilene had promised that she and James would not harm Alfie, they had made no such promise about me, and I was quite familiar, though second-hand, about the deep and abiding love that Malakim carry for causing the deaths of creatures of my stripe. Given that, safe and secure was better than the routine.

Instead, I set up a chess board. I'd known many demons who loved chess, and angels too; I didn't, but I recognized it as a useful tool for studying strategy and noticing patterns. Usually, playing a solo game -- controlling both sides of the board -- offered little of that utility, but I did have an advantage in that respect. After, for example, I made a white move, I'd tell myself, as forcefully as I could, "You are playing Black. You do not know what the White player's strategy is." After five minutes, I'd do the same thing in the other direction. Playing against myself, but not remembering what I'd done or why I'd done it, made for a much more challenging game than the usual solo fare; I'd learned the trick from a mentor back home, and it had served me well on Earth, even when my chess set was little more than creatively-liberated salt and pepper shakers and a butcher-paper board.

I spent a few hours on this, and spent the intermotal minutes straightening the apartment and reading fashion and design magazines I hadn't had the chance to catch up on. It does, after all, pay to keep up on what the people want when you're in the business of helping people get it. After Black had won twice and White once -- apparently I played better when I went second -- I took a break from the game and looked back out over the streets. The sun was high in the sky and the sidewalks were as full of people as ever, and it occurred to me that if James really wanted to kill or maim me, it wasn't like he didn't know where I lived, and unlike vampires, Malakim could and would barge in whenever they wanted to. 

So I decided to damn the torpedoes and go out anyway. Purse in hand, shoes on feet, I opened the door and discovered a young man standing on the other side, hand raised as though to knock. I was sure I'd seen him before, but perhaps it was just his type: he was tall and relatively good-looking, if the kind of pale and dark-haired that meant he didn't get enough sun. He was slender and perhaps toned under his relatively nice clothing, though; if he was a shut-in, he at least was going to pains to not be the stereotype. I looked up and we locked eyes for a moment. His were bright blue, the kind that make you feel like you're looking at an otherwise monochrome photograph.

He cleared his throat after what must have been a few seconds, and lowered his fist into a handshake gesture. "Miss Habich?" he asked, and I nodded and took his hand. "My name is Eugene Victor Ferguson." His voice was quiet, and he was hushing it further, so as not to be overheard. "I understand that you deal in connections."

"I do," I said, pulling a pair of sunglasses out of my purse. I held them in my hand, not putting them on yet, but they made me feel safer just by being there. "Clients don't usually find me at my apartment. What can I do for you?"

"I apologize," he said, taking a step back. "I prefer to handle first meetings in person. I am interested in acquiring certain pieces of modern art, should they happen to become available through means under your control. I am, of course, willing to pay a fair price --" Damn. "-- and while I do have a list of preferred acquisitions, I'll be happy to consider pieces that are not explicitly on the table." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me; at the top were his name and a telephone number, and then a list of names, along with rough sketches of each piece...

And a suggested price, at which I did my best not to smile toothily. Perhaps less damn.

I pocketed the list and smiled. "Mr. Ferguson, I will be certain to contact you should any of these pieces come to my attention. Naturally, I can't guarantee that any of them will become available, much less when, but..."

"Oh, I understand," Eugene said, smiling. "I wouldn't dream of asking that any of them come onto the market early. But... if they should come onto the market, you'll let me know?"

"I will," I said, patting my pocket. 

He nodded, and extended his hand again. "It's been a pleasure, Miss Habich. You know where to reach me."

"I do. Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Ferguson. Good day."

He turned to walk to the elevator, and I closed the door; the smile faded from my face. It was, I thought, perhaps time for a new apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Praxicopephobia: The fear of being surprised.


	4. Catalamptephobia

I leaned back against the closed door, waiting for the elevator to chime so I'd know he'd gone, breathing consciously to slow my hammering heart. I was used to being the one who found people -- not the one being found. And now, in the span of two days, I'd been located at the restaurant by James and Ilene, found again by Ilene at my apartment, and now tracked down by this Eugene Victor Ferguson. It was true that I didn't take particular measures to stay hidden, but I also didn't advertise my address or where I was going, and so to have two different groups I didn't know successfully track me down three different times was unnerving. Especially to someone who just wanted to stay indoors and not socialize--

 _Now, wait a minute_ , I thought. That wasn't like me at all. I liked being out and about; I liked socializing. To want to hide and stay solitary was not in my nature in the slightest. So I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and started rifling through my own mind. This was a skill I'd learned very early in my career; those of us who count fear and manipulation among our greatest assets need to know whether and why we ourselves are afraid or allowing ourselves to be manipulated. Sorting through memories wasn't easy; with this sort of self-awareness comes, well, self-awareness, and my instinct was to correct each memory, erasing the tiny slips and mistakes, the cracks in my perfect veneer. 

Instead I soldiered on, forcing myself to ignore the imperfections and looking for the giveaway. Ferguson's visit was too late; I'd been feeling this way all morning. Ilene's, the previous night, didn't seem off either. In fact, paying closer attention, I realized that while her visit had been unexpected, it hadn't provoked any kind of anxiety in me. Perhaps it was too early. I slid forward in my mental catalog, toward the present.

After Ilene's visit I'd taken a bath, using a book as an excuse to keep my hand out of the water. Swimming and bathing had always been one of my joys on Earth; the buoyancy of the water reminded me of my natural weightlessness on other planes of existence. When the water had grown tepid, I'd put on nightclothes and climbed into bed. I'd considered tampering with the dreams of some of my neighbors, but after the visit from Ilene, I'd been loath to spend the Essence and draw more attention to myself. Instead, I sat in bed, considering possibilities for the previous hours --

That was it. The tiny lies to examine multiple possibilities -- I could call them that now, after the fact. Using my gift could inspire fear in those whom I targeted, and some of that must have bled out into myself. After a night of turning my resonance on myself, I must have saddled myself with dozens of tiny fears -- of crowds, of open spaces, of being discovered, all based on the threats I'd received that evening. Well, that was an easy problem to fix, at least for the moment. I went to the bathroom and looked myself in the eye; this part wasn't actually necessary, but gave my voice extra force. I cleared my throat, summoned every ounce of willpower I had, and said, "You are not afraid."

And just like that, I wasn't.

I could remember having _been_ afraid; having fretted around the apartment all morning, playing chess against myself; having nearly jumped out of my body when I opened the door to find Eugene; of the miniature breakdown I'd had after he'd left, nearly in tears as I listened for the elevator chime. But it all seemed so silly, so ... petty. I was not some lesser being to be terrorized by the whims and maneuvers of others. I was a Balseraph, the royalty of Hell, and one who served Nightmares, the Queen of Terror. I did not fear angels or humans or even other demons; _they feared me_.

Oh, it felt good to be back in my right mind.

*****

When 1:30 arrived I was exactly where I meant to be. I barely needed to convince myself that the fears were false anymore; they'd faded on their own with the lack of reinforcement. I'd passed some of the time by working the crowd, walking among them and sowing subtle discord. "He's cheating on you" and a fear of abandonment here, "there's a bomb in a trash can, but no one will believe you" and a fear of letting others die there -- there was so much I could do with a well-placed word and lowered sunglasses. 

I saw Alfie before he saw me. He was standing on the staircase, scanning the crowd. I had no intention of waving or shouting to draw attention to myself, so I slithered through the mass of people toward him, keeping an eye on his position. I noticed as I did that he didn't have the object with him. Not a big deal; finding out what he'd done with it wouldn't be difficult once I could get to him. I also realized that I hadn't seen James or Ilene while I'd been in the station, and wondered whether they were even here. Perhaps they were in different vessels, or, more dangerously, surveying the area in their natural forms, unseen to human eyes. Either way, their absence set me on edge. There was thankfully no fear involved; I just had a sense that I should be paying special attention.

The takedown was quiet and skilled. A man and a woman appeared out of the crowd behind Alfie; the woman leaned forward to whisper in his ear, and Alfie visibly deflated and raised his hands, lacing his fingers behind his head. The man snapped handcuffs over his wrists and Alfie lowered his hands again, and together the trio walked quietly up the stairs. It was possible nobody else at the station had even noticed, but I knew an arrest when I saw one.

I heard Ilene's voice in my ear. "Was that your plan, then?"

I turned. She and James were behind me, dispelling the thought I'd had that they were the two plainclothes cops. "If my intent were to have Alfie arrested, do you think I'd be here in the station where he could see me?"

"I suppose that's a fair point," Ilene said. 

I looked around. "It's too crowded here. Come with me." I led the two angels back to an unmarked metal double door, and pulled a key out of my purse; I'd blackmailed it off a maintenance worker years earlier, but had never bothered to use it. Thankfully, they hadn't changed the lock, and the three of us slipped inside. I closed the door tightly and relocked it, then pulled my little penlight out of my purse. Sending a pulse of Essence into it, I willed it into action, and the room lit up.

"Where are we?" asked Ilene.

"This used to be a tunnel to Pennsylvania Station. Shut down in the mid-nineties."

"I recognized the officers," Ilene offered. "They were investigating the break-in and murder."

"I still don't think he's the killer," I said. "And he didn't have the object with him."

Ilene dipped a hand into her pocket and produced a photograph. The object it depicted was abstract: three bent, swooping fingers in metal, each about a foot long and ending in a pointed tip, extending from a wooden base. It was inexplicably beautiful; I saw why Alfie would have chosen it to take. Then Ilene upped the ante: "We're all in on the secret. Let's call it what it is: an artifact. A relic, actually."

"What does it do?"

"We don't know. Delia acquired it at auction a few weeks ago. A... friend was visiting this week, and identified it as a relic, although he couldn't say what sort it was or how to operate it. We were about to take it to our supervisor to have it examined when Alfie stole it."

"Allegedly."

"Very well. Allegedly stole it. Now we need to get it back - an unidentified relic is dangerous, especially when it's been stolen and especially when it's disappeared from the thief's possession."

"Alleged thief! But-" I put my hand up to silence what was obviously going to be her exasperated retort. "But in this case, I agree with you. An unknown relic is dangerous, and I want it controlled. If my experience is anything to go by, it'll be tomorrow morning before I can call on Alfie in the precinct's holding cells -- but as soon as I can, I'll be there, and I'll find out where he's put the object."

"RELIC," rumbled James.

"No," I said, "it's safer if we call it the object. I'm not sure how long you've been in the city, or what crowds you're used to mingling with, but we need to assume that anyone we meet could be one of us -- and if they hear the word 'relic', they'll want whatever we're after too. 'The object' is neutral, and right now, neutral is safe. Do you understand?"

James nodded. "IT PAINS ME TO LEAVE YOU ALIVE," he said, and I nodded back.

"I've dealt with your kind before. If it helps, I'm not actually evil. I don't like to see buses full of nuns driven off cliffs any more than you do. Cartoon supervillains are evil. I'm just scary and manipulative."

"DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME, LITTLE BALSERAPH," he said.

"I would never dream of it," I said, and gestured to the door. "But at the moment, it's probably best if we get back to our daily lives. I'll check in with Alfie as soon as I'm able." It occurred to me that it was much easier to get away with murder when you were hidden away in an underground subway tunnel, deliberately far from anyone who could overhear.

Ilene nodded. "You will contact us as soon as you get in touch with Alfie?"

"On my life," I unlocked the door, and the three of us stepped back out into the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catalamptephobia: The fear of being arrested.


	5. Parateretophobia

There are certain habits that it's useful to get into when you are in the position in society that I hold, and one of those is crowd-watching. If I don't have anything else to do, and I'm not hiding in my apartment playing chess against myself, I spend my time losing myself in groups of people and paying attention to what they're doing and wearing. Most of the time, I'm just collecting information; among other things, I'm known as a particularly adept trendspotter, if for no other reason than that if I'm going to be brokering trades of illicitly-gained information and materials and be good at my job, I have to know what's going to be popular tomorrow. But with the right group and the right words, I actually get to decide what the trend is going to be, and that's a hell of a rush.

I've been told that a particularly wise human once said "The unexamined life is not worth living". He must have been particularly wise, because the majority of humans do lead fairly unexamined lives, and I love it. When I use my resonance, the effect lasts minutes at best, and then whomever I spoke to is no longer compelled to believe what I said. When I do this to angels and demons, they tend to immediately turn around and decide that because I _forced_ them to believe what I said, that must mean I lied to them. (Naturally, I never lie to them. But occasionally the Seraphim and I have disagreements on the nature of truth. It is what it is.)

Oh, but humans - humans live unexamined lives. When a human gets a belief in their head, it damn well sticks. And so when those minutes of compelled belief are up... well, they have no reason to question what, thirty seconds ago, they knew to be true. They just keep on believing it, sometimes for the rest of their lives. If you're prepared, you can choose your words and prepare props, and then even if you get caught you have some backup. "I'm an insurance investigator" will get you past a guard; "This piece of paper says I'm a bonded and licensed insurance investigator and that you should let me through" gives you _plausible deniability_. "Honest, I just walked up holding your flyer and he just unhooked the cordon and let me in! I figured he knew what he was doing!" There's a special bonus, too: it f**ks with a human. That never gets old.

Hell, I almost got a man _elected_ that way once - just tell enough humans what to believe for five minutes, and then let their own inertia carry them right to the voting booth. (That was the first time I met a Malakite who voted Republican, by the way.)

This particular afternoon, I'd headed to the Museum of Modern Art. I'll confess that if I decided to go to a museum on a given day, it was more likely to be the Museum of Modern Art than any other. This was in large part because of its external facade and architecture. For a building housing such a fascinating and varied collection, the exterior of the Museum was relatively staid and straightforward - a classic example of architectural misdirection. I loved it.

The crowd was average for a weekday afternoon, and it took little time to get in - I was, naturally, a member, although equally naturally, I'd never paid for the privilege; they simply liked me enough to let me join their esteemed ranks - and join the crush of tourists, artists, and local fans flocking between the exhibits. I practiced on them a bit - if you happen to hear that Cao Guo-Qiang has died, I apologize; I just wanted to see how much the value of his work would appreciate! - but my primary focus was on the work itself. I'd seen only the one photograph, but the object - the relic - didn't seem quite right for a modern work. The shine on the metal was wrong, and the wood looked aged in a way that would be hard to duplicate using modern tools. For all that I wouldn't have been surprised to see it in this gallery with different materials, I had my suspicions about the object being much older than it looked.

On a whim, I started a quiet rumor about a stolen work of unknown countenance, matching the object's description. ("Pass it on" is my very best friend, some days.) The crowd chattered among themselves for a while, and I could watch the rumor spread as members of my group split off and merged with other groups - I'd have to pay attention later to see what it dug up. As I disengaged from my crowd and settled in on a bench, I realized that someone was sitting down next to me. "Hello, Ursula," said the familiar voice.

I smiled. "Marta," I replied. "I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"

"Oh, well, I am well," she said, and smiled back. Marta was an old friend; she and my Earthly identity had come from East Germany to the United States at roughly the same time, although her family was originally from Poland, and where I'd entered the darker side of the art trade, she'd gone legitimate, and was now a curator here at the Museum. It had been several months since we'd talked, but unlike most humans, I was honestly glad to see Marta every time we met. She was intelligent, charming, and graceful in a serpentine way, and even looked good in green and gold. Today she was wearing a fairly-long emerald cocktail dress with a V-cut neckline and the matching gold earrings and bracelet I'd bought her a few Christmases ago. 

"I'm glad to hear that. Last time I saw you, you were complaining of a cold?" I let my accent lapse a bit back to my role's German roots as I spoke; the more guttural language was more difficult for me but was, for my role, much more comfortable. "It sounds like you have overcome it, though."

"Oh, yes," she said, laying her hand on mine. I closed my eyes for a moment and _did_ relax; Marta knew and trusted me, and I in turn had no need or desire to lead her astray, as it were. The accent might not have been as comfortable, but her company was far more comforting than any I'd been in recently, if I allowed myself to admit that. "And you?" she asked. "How have you been, Ursula?"

I hmmed for a moment. "Tell me, have you heard about a piece that might have been in the public eye recently? A steel sculpture on a wooden base, perhaps a yard tall if that; three fingers rising from the wood to make an abstract claw. I've been hearing about it."

"Mm, yes," Marta said. "Not my field; it was advertised as being several hundred years old." So I'd been right about its countenance. Glad to know I still had that touch, after my brushes with Malakim and the police. "It was auctioned a few weeks ago, I think. A socialite bought it - York, maybe? I could check."

"No, that's all right. I was just curious to know what you knew." I squeezed Marta's hand. "I know you are on duty, but perhaps we should meet sometime soon for lunch and catch up."

"I'd like that. But you are right; I am, ah, on duty." She laughed and stood, turning to face one of the Museum directors, who'd come in while we were talking. The director pulled Marta aside and began talking urgently, and I shrugged; either I would hear about it soon enough or it wasn't important. In the meantime, there were plenty more pieces to see, and plenty more crowds to influence. I stood, placed my hand briefly on Marta's shoulder - she favored me with a smile and a nod - and passed on into the next gallery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parateretophobia: The fear of being observed.


	6. Pseudocategorophobia

It was several hours later - I confess, when I'm having fun, I lose track of time - when I finally left the Museum. In my defense, I had spent just as much time paying attention to the exhibits as I had the crowds. Still, I left when they did, neither the first nor last out when the museum closed. I hadn't seen Marta since she'd gone off with the director, but I was sure we'd be in touch again soon. In the meantime, I decided that I ought to get something to eat; I didn't need it, strictly speaking, but one must keep up appearances.

I've long had a fondness for a small club about a dozen blocks from the Museum of Modern Art. It was a speakeasy during Prohibition, turned over to a bar and restaurant when the ban on alcohol lifted - a ban on alcohol; what will humans think of next? - and became a moderately high-end club around 1980, when greed was just starting to get good again and the rising stars of the financial world wanted somewhere exclusive but not _too_ exclusive to slake their thirst and sate their hunger. The portions were still generous, and the alcohol was still good, which was nice considering how much meals there cost; I could go to some trendy BYOB molecular-gastronomy joint and end up with two ounces of caviar foam on hardtack for two thousand dollars, or I could come to the Nightfall Club, spend fifty dollars, and get actual goddamn fish and a bottle of wine to boot.

(Yes, I spent the money. There are some demons who are cartoonishly evil; Malakim love them because there's no ambiguity. They stiff waiters and bartenders, impale nuns on crucifixes, kick babies and steal candy from puppies. And then there are those of us who like our jobs, enjoy living on Earth, and understand that ours is a _cold_ war. Pay your tab, and they don't have a picture of you on the wall next to the maitre-d's station the next time you walk in. Help the nun across the street, and they don't come looking for you when someone stupid and unsubtle comes to town and nuns go missing. Pet dogs and give candy to babies - okay, these days parents might get upset at the latter. But the whole _point_ of corporeal work is that you don't _want_ people to look at you and think "demonic possession" or, worse, straight-up "demon", which means that in the long term, it's way easier to just tip the damn waiter.)

(The museum membership was different. Shut up.)

I lingered in the club for a few hours, listening to the piano, watching the people come and go, slowly finishing that bottle of wine and a second. I listened to the crowd - an infidelity here, a subtle fence there; they were my kind of people. The corporate raiders who still thought they owned this place brought money, but my sort brought class and romance and, let's face it, the lovely side of crime. I wasn't surprised when about half the conversations in the room went quiet as someone new walked in the door. What did surprise me was when that someone new sat down at my table.

It took me the entire span from when she entered to when she pulled the chair out to place her: one of the cops from earlier in the night. I smiled over my half-full glass as she took her seat. "What can I do for you, officer?" 

"Ursula Habich?" asked the policewoman, not smiling back.

"The very same." I lifted my glass to her, took a sip.

"How long have you been here, Ms. Habich?" She had a genuinely flat affect at the moment, which was impressive on anyone but an Elohite or a sociopath. 

"Here as in the city, or...?"

"This restaurant. If I asked three employees to tell me how long you'd been here, what would the average be?"

I knew what they'd tell her - "All night, ma'am" - but in this case I had no reason to force her to ask them. "I was at the Museum of Modern Art until it closed at five-thirty. I came directly here - maybe twenty minutes - and I've been here ever since. Call it an even six o'clock." There was no clock in the room, but I'd felt my dusk Essence come in hours ago.

"Do you know a man named Alfred McGruder?" Still flat.

"Officer, I'm going to have to ask for your name and badge number before I'll answer that question." Usually a stalling tactic, but in this case it sounded like it might be best if I knew who I was dealing with.

"Detective Tanya Moreno. 24937," she said, and produced a badge that backed that up. 

I handed it back to her. "I know Alfie. Is he all right?"

"We have him in custody; he's accused of a few crimes. But I think you know that, Ms. Habich. He had something on him that you wanted, I assume?"

I frowned. This was a little too close for comfort. "Not so far as I'm aware, Detective. What's going on?"

Her expression didn't change. "Someone broke into the precinct tonight and attacked several officers, making their way to the holding cell where we were keeping Mr. McGruder. McGruder's still there - but he's incoherent, spouting gibberish in a corner."

I sat bolt upright in my chair. "So it wasn't a breakout. They must have wanted something. Officer, I give you my word that it wasn't me." I turned on my serious voice. "I did not break into the precinct office, and I did not send anyone to do so. You must take me there immediately."

She nodded and stood up. "Come on, then." 

I looked her over as she stood. Not a scratch or a mark on her. "Were you there?"

"Excuse me?"

"At the station house. Were you there when whoever it was broke in?"

She shook her head. "My partner was." Hence the flat affect. She was in shock.

I got up myself and nodded to the waiter. I'd paid my bill long ago, but the half-bottle of shiraz on the table was his if he wanted it. So much for my plans for the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pseudocategorophobia: The fear of being falsely accused.


	7. Rhabdophobia

The station was quiet, but I expected that at that time of night. The wooden doors and the brick around them sported a ragged line of bullet holes where someone had fired an automatic weapon at them. I gestured toward the door as we walked up. "New decor?"

Moreno nodded. "From what I'm told, whoever it was came in and asked for your friend McGruder, and then started shooting when he wasn't allowed in."

I hadn't heard any disturbance, so I'd known that it was either a human or a celestial just doing mental harm - which meant a demon, practically speaking - and now that I knew there had been physical damage, celestials were out of the picture. Well, except the few who were allowed by their Princes to avoid disturbing the Symphony, and I couldn't think of any of those exceptions that covered bullets hitting walls.

We walked through the doors, and the quiet outside turned into urgent, angry chaos inside. The entire population of the precinct, it seemed, was in residence tonight, zipping to and fro like bees upset about someone disturbing their hive. Even so, I could track the trail of destruction the invader had left. It led from the entrance straight back to the holding cells, and while there were some stray bullet holes around the room, for the most part the intruder had been single-minded, driving straight back to Alfie.

A man in a crisp suit called out to Moreno and waved over the hubbub. "Is that her?"

Moreno grabbed my wrist and made her way to the man. "This is Ms. Habich, Captain. And I'm satisfied that she had nothing to do with this." 

The Captain extended his hand, and I took it briefly. "Irving Benacek."

"Ursula Habich," I replied, "but you already knew that. Captain Benacek, how is Alfie? May I see him?"

Benacek frowned, but he gestured back along the path the intruder had left. "Right this way. Do your best not to step on any important paperwork, huh?" 

I left the Captain behind, but Detective Moreno stayed with me, and we made our way through the slowly-recovering wreckage to the holding cells. Along the way I noticed a few security cameras, their bodies or lenses shot out. "Did you get any security footage of whoever did this?" I asked.

"We have about a minute of the back of his head before he went on his rampage, but it doesn't tell us much beyond what he was wearing and what haircut he had. Half the force is out looking for him just based on that, though." I nodded, but I had my doubts. If I'd had the presence of mind to shoot out the security cameras, the first thing I'd do once I left would be to change my clothes and mess up my hair. Then again, I don't tend to go on roaring rampages.

I thought about it for a moment. This was either someone who thought nothing of carrying automatic weapons into a police station, or they'd anticipated being turned away and had been prepared for it. Either way, though, it sounded like they'd left Alfie alive, which, given that they'd had no compunctions about killing police officers, seemed strange. 

We made the turn into the holding cells, and I saw Alfie in the closest. He was huddled in a corner, breathing shallowly, and it took me a moment to realize that he was crying but trying to keep it to himself. I glanced at Moreno, who nodded and unlocked the cell, then backed away, resting her hand on her gun. I swung the door just enough to get through, and stepped inside slowly, closing the door behind me. "Alfie," I said, "are you all right?"

He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and I could tell he'd been crying for a while. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, and tried to control his breathing. I reached out and gingerly patted his hand. "He took it, Miss Habich," he said, speaking slowly to make sure his words were intelligible.

"What did he take?" I asked, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"The key," he said, and broke down into sobs again.

I ran my fingers over his hand soothingly, and leaned in closer. "Alfie, I need you to look at me, all right?" He lifted his head again, and I looked directly into his eyes and breathed my resonance into my words. "Alfie, you did nothing wrong and you have nothing to be upset about. Okay?"

Alfie stuck his head back down into his palms and sobbed harder.

I knew resistance when I felt it. In theory, anyone could resist me, if they had enough willpower to do so. In practice, it was rare for a human to be able to muster the strength to push me back. But that wasn't what had happened. My resonance hadn't been resisted; there was already something else there blocking it. Some other demon had manipulated Alfie's mind before I'd gotten to him, and judging by his irrational emotional state, I guessed that a Punisher was on the loose somewhere - probably a member of the police force. I could think of any number of Words who'd see use in a cop with the ability to make his suspects remorseful, or furious, or guilty as Hell, whatever it took to get the confession or a pointer to the real culprit.

Still, as interesting as the idea was, I needed Alfie back, so I redoubled my efforts, taking his hand in mine and grasping it firmly. I didn't want to give myself away by burning Essence around a potential demon, so I just used my own natural force of personality again. "Alfie," I said, as firmly as I could, "you have nothing to cry about. You are going to tell me everything that I need to know about what happened here tonight - as much as you know. You haven't done anything wrong and you have no reason to be upset."

There - I felt the other demon's hold on Alfie crack and crumble, as my words slithered their way into his brain. He took a few more shuddering breaths, dried his eyes and his nose on his sleeve, and then looked up at me. "Miss Habich - gosh, I'm not sure why I was taking that so hard." He squeezed my hand and started getting to his feet; I helped him up.

"Don't worry about it. We all have our little outbursts sometimes." I smiled and led him to the bench at the side of the cell. "Now, what happened here?"

"I was behaving well and helping the cops out with what they needed, when all of a sudden I heard crashing and gunfire coming from the main room. I got back against the cell wall, but a man came walking in holding a set of keys and smiling. He said he wouldn't shoot me if I gave him what he needed, and told me to give him the..." He glanced at Moreno. "The Maltese Falcon. Well, I told him I didn't have it, and he said, okay, then tell me how to get it. And he pointed the gun at me, so I got the key out of my shoe where I was keeping it, and gave it to him. And I told him how to find the locker where I put the Falcon, so he wouldn't shoot me - I figured my life's a lot more important than the Falcon, you know? I can always get... more Falcons." He swallowed. "And then he said thank you, and he laughed, and then I can't remember anything except just wanting to curl up in a corner and be left alone and cry a lot, and then you showed up."

I turned to Moreno. "You're sure there was just one person who came in tonight?"

Moreno nodded. "Yep. Just the one guy, as far as anyone can tell."

So the intruder had been a demon - sadly, my Punisher cop idea was a bust - but then how had he managed to avoid causing disturbance? Belial's Destroyers could resonate an object to pieces without disturbing the Symphony, but I was sure that didn't extend to using a gun. Saminga's Balseraphs didn't cause a disturbance when killing humans, but that wouldn't have stopped the collateral damage from ringing out through the Symphony. Perhaps a human had learned a Song that caused its victim to become uncontrollably sad - but then I would have heard disturbance from their singing the Song, and it wasn't a Song I'd heard of, anyway. Granted, at this point I was purely speculating, and I might as well be talking about a human with an Infernal resonance --

Wait. I remembered an old story I'd heard, about an attunement Asmodeus sometimes gave to deep-cover operatives - and attunement that turned them human for a day. Could that be it? Was I contending not only with an unhappy Mercurian and Malakite, but with one of the Game's favored servitors?

 _Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhabdophobia: The fear of punishment.


	8. Heuriskephobia

I stood, slowly, releasing Alfie's hand and smoothing the front of my sweater. If the Game _and_ Heaven were involved - I still hadn't worked out which Words Ilene and James worked for - this was a lot more dangerous than I'd realized, and it was all the more important that it be handled quietly and quickly. "Alfie," I said, "where did you put the object?"

My resonance still buzzed in his mind, so he answered quickly: "In a storage locker at a rental unit a few blocks from Herald Square."

"Where exactly?" I asked. I wanted to tap my foot, but I settled for crossing my arms. I hoped it didn't get too much of the message across; I _liked_ Alfie, and I really wasn't upset with him, just impatient to get going.

Alfie rattled off the directions from Herald Square Station, then looked concerned. "Why are you having me say this in front of the police?"

"Because," I said, turning to Detective Moreno, "you want to help Alfie and me, don't you?" I smiled, and felt my voice take hold in her mind as well. She nodded silently, returning the smile.

"See? We're all good friends here. We all just want what's best. Now, Alfie, because we need to keep you safe" - _and_ , I thought, _because I don't want to be responsible for what would technically be a jailbreak_ \- "we're going to leave you here, locked up. It's just to keep you safe. They'll let you out as soon as whoever's behind this is caught." 

Alfie nodded and curled up on the bench. "Could I have a blanket? It's pretty cold in here."

"I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, you just stay put, okay?" I squeezed his hand again and stepped back, easing past Moreno. Once I was clear, she closed and locked the door. "Detective, would you mind finding Alfie a blanket?"

"Of course not. They're just in the storage cabinet over here." She pulled one out and tossed it between the bars to him; he grinned gratefully and unfolded it, curling up with his arm as a pillow.

I looked between them, nodded. Alfie really would be safe here, now that the cops were on alert, and now that he didn't _have_ the relic, he wasn't of any further use to anyone who might want it. With a hint of sadness, I included myself in that tally. 

Detective Moreno, on the other hand, could still be quite useful. "Detective," I said, guiding her away from the holding cells but not quite back to the bullpen, "you need to find out if any cameras record that locker vault."

She was still under the sway of my voice, and nodded easily. "I'll go check," she said, and headed off toward the entrance, leaving me free and loose inside the police station. I took the opportunity to meander around the still-busy bullpen. I'd never been inside the precinct station before, except once when I was pulled in for a robbery I genuinely knew nothing about, and so I'd never had the chance to meet all the police officers - well, most of them, anyway - in person. I slid from desk to desk, touching each officer on the shoulder, murmuring gentle affirmations of the good work they were doing and letting them know that they made their city proud, and resonating so that they'd know it was true. In the process, I sowed little, quiet fears: the hint, at the back of their minds, that they should be terribly afraid of disappointing me or interfering in my affairs. 

Like I said, the human mind loves inertia, and it loves to confirm in groups what it believes singly; after a few days, none of the officers would be _compelled_ to fear messing with me, but the idea would linger, and the lingering idea would reinforce itself as it came up quietly in conversation. New cops would subtly get the idea that, at the very least, this precinct of this police department Left Ursula Habich Alone, even if nobody ever said it outright.

After all, sometimes the best way to stay off the authorities' radar is just to suggest that they not look at you.

I ended up at Moreno's desk; she had just hung up the phone as I got there, and was pulling up digital video of the storage lockers. "Amazing what you can get people to cough up when they think they might be obstructing a murder investigation if they don't," she said, smiling up at me.

"Nice work, friend," I said, laying my hand on her shoulder and reinforcing that last word with my resonance. Her smile widened fractionally; mine responded. It was nice to have a friend on the force, even if we'd only just met. "Any luck on our timeframe?"

"I got video from the last time we know he was in the precinct house - the timestamp on the last frame of the video recorded by the last camera he shot out - until five minutes ago, and the owner's promised to keep recording until I tell him to stop." She looked at her watch. "I've got nothing else to do tonight. I'll just watch it until I find him."

"I'll stay," I said. I could have pulled up a chair, but I preferred to stay standing; it kept me mobile in case our intruder came back and gave me a good perspective on the rest of the room. We watched for about fifteen minutes, keeping the video going at a few times normal speed, until I spotted someone approach Alfie's locker. "Hold it - there he is."

"Same guy. Or at least he looks the same from the back as he did in the police surveillance video." Moreno slowed the video down to standard speed. The intruder opened the locker using the key, took the familiar brown-paper-wrapped object out, and closed the locker again. Then he turned, smiled at the camera, and walked away. My breath caught in my throat, and Moreno noticed. "Do you know him?"

"Yeah." I fumbled in my purse. "He gave his name as Eugene Ferguson. Said he wanted to buy some things I had for sale." I found the list Ferguson had given me, and tore the name and number off it. "I didn't have him pegged as a killer."

Moreno took the slip from my hand and started a search through the police database. "Nobody ever does. Any time you see someone who's obviously a killer, they're actually an accountant who feeds stray cats and does volunteer work at hospitals and retirement homes."

"I just met him this morning. To think I could have stopped all this just by --"

"Don't go down that road," Moreno said. "He's responsible for this. Not you. I don't care if you met him today or in kindergarten, you don't share any of the blame or any of the responsibility."

It was probably a good thing, I thought, that she'd stopped me before I'd said what was actually on my mind: -- _just by killing him then for violating my privacy._ But I nodded. "You're right. It's just a natural reaction, I think. But it's his fault, and he's the one who needs to be brought in."

We waited in silence for a few minutes, watching the progress bar on the database software. About two-thirds of the way through the search, Captain Benacek emerged from his office. "Moreno, a word?"

Moreno got up. "Keep an eye on this, huh?" she asked me, before heading over to the Captain's office. I continued to watch the video, still standing, now entirely bored. Around ninety percent - which was five minutes later - the Captain's door opened again, and Moreno stepped out. "Sorry about that. The victim's cousin and his fianceé showed up - only relatives in town - and they were wondering if we had any new leads."

"Alfie's?" He hadn't mentioned relatives, but then, we'd just been business contacts last night. "Or one of your fellow officers'?"

She shook her head. "Delia York. The woman who was murdered last night."

 _Oh_. "Right. Where this whole thing started. I'm glad that she at least had relatives to come identify her and see to her final wishes."

Moreno nodded. "I told them we didn't have anything but McGruder, but..." She looked away.

I smiled, reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. "It's okay," I said, my voice loaded with resonance. "You can tell me." Like every time before, she couldn't or didn't resist.

"I'm hoping this Ferguson guy gives us a lead, but I can't tell them that," she said, half-frowning. "McGruder's still our prime suspect, though, and for all we know this Ferguson guy heard about the theft and just really wanted the sculpture. Maybe there's a million-dollar check hidden in the base."

I wished it were that simple. "Well, as soon as the database comes up, we'll know." As if on cue, Moreno's computer pinged, and the results came up: no criminal record, but a DMV record listed his address as an apartment south of the precinct. Moreno wrote down the address, and picked up her coat. "I'll come with you," I said, and I didn't even need to put power in my voice to get her to say yes.

As we walked past Captain Benacek's office, the door opened again, and to what should not at all have been my surprise, Ilene and James walked out. "Ah, Ms. York's cousin and his fianceé. How nice to see you again." Ilene had mentioned that James had had a closer relationship to Delia than she, and I berated myself for not guessing. Publicly, I summoned my composure and extended a hand to James, who frowned, but took it. "Do they have any leads?"

"Just one," Ilene replied, "but it's circumstantial. We're all hoping they find a better suspect or better evidence." James released my hand, and made a noncommittal noise.

"I hope they do too," I said, sympathy I wasn't sure I felt in my voice, and started walking toward the front doors, flanked by Detective Moreno. James and Ilene fell into step behind us.

At the door, Ilene said, "You know, I think we're all three going to about the same area of town. Care to share a cab?"

"I'm afraid I need to follow Detective Moreno. Police business."

"Oh," Ilene said, "I didn't know you worked with the police. Perhaps we could come along? If it's related to Delia's case, we might be able to give some insight."

Moreno shook her head. "I really shouldn't allow someone close to the case to be involved with it."

James had his hand on my shoulder now, and the tightness of his grip told me everything I needed to know. I turned to Moreno. "It's all right," I said, resonating again. "They're allowed to come."

She frowned as her will mustered itself, but to no avail. "All right," she finally allowed. "This one time."

We all piled into Moreno's car; I had aimed for the passenger seat, but James got there first, and I was forced into the back with Ilene. Once we were on the road, Ilene pulled me close and whispered in my ear. "Okay. We know you know more than you're letting on. So let on."

"I shouldn't," I said, but my resonance bounced off her. Damn; the one willful Mercurian in all the world. I lowered my voice. "Fine. This morning, a man named Ferguson came by my apartment offering to buy some specific pieces that weren't for sale yet. This afternoon, he came shooting into the precinct station, killed a bunch of cops, and took the key to the locker where Alfie had hidden the object. We caught him on tape taking the object from the locker, and we just got his address from a DMV record." I paused. Would that satisfy them?

Ilene and James shared a brief look; despite my quiet voice, James must have heard. "No disturbance," Ilene said. "How did a human manage to shoot up a police station and get out alive?"

"Sometimes they get lucky," I hissed. "Why are you asking me? I wasn't there." Let _them_ walk into the potential Gamester's den.

She let go, and I settled back into my seat. "Even if he has the object," Ilene said, "there's a good chance that since he's human, he doesn't know how it works, and that he's just a psychopath who wanted it at auction, lost to Delia, and was willing to do whatever it took to get it." I nodded.

The car slowed, and pulled up in front of an apartment building. Moreno came around and unlocked the car door for us, and we all piled silently through the entrance of the apartment complex and into the elevator, Moreno flashing her badge at an inquisitive desk clerk. There was no talk on the way up, either; Moreno was focusing on the job and James, I was sure, didn't want to deafen her with his capital letters, but I was sure the Mercurian would have appreciated more conversation. When we got to Ferguson's supposed floor, I let the others get out of the elevator first, allowing James to be an ablative meat barrier between me and the crazy gunman. He glanced over his shoulder at me, let out an amused chuckle, and kept walking. At least he knew his job.

Me and a temporarily-allied human, James and Ilene barging in where they weren't wanted - it occurred to me that we were right back where we'd started. And with that thought came the sudden realization that I hadn't been wrong earlier; I'd felt like Ferguson had been familiar when he'd shown up at my apartment, and thinking back to that meeting at the Final Destination, I realized that Ferguson's had been one of the faces at the diner, several booths down and dressed much more shabbily than that morning, with a baseball cap and a beaten-up hoodie. He'd already been in his seat when I'd come in, and I hadn't paid much attention at all to the other humans in the diner. 

Moreno knocked on the apartment door. "Eugene Ferguson, it's the NYPD! Open up!"

And if he was there at the beginning, and he really was a Gamester, then he'd have heard the disturbance to the Symphony when James had hurt those humans trying to get to me, and he'd know that James and Ilene weren't human. The pieces started falling together. 

The door swung inward, and Moreno took a step back.

Inside Ferguson's apartment, disturbance rang out in the Symphony - the disturbance of a Song being sung, but tinny, artificial. James pulled back his coat and reached under it, but not before a pair of shots rang out, and Moreno collapsed with brand-new ventilation in her kneecaps.

"It's a trap," I said, to nobody in particular.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heuriskephobia: The fear of finding something out.


	9. Teleuphobia

To his credit, James was between the door and the downed Detective Moreno in a heartbeat, and when the next bullet hit him, he didn't so much as flinch. He reached out into the doorway, and a second artificial Song's disturbance rang through the air; James stopped, a look of puzzlement on his face, and then pulled back, looking down at Moreno and the growing pool of blood under her. "WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED HERE?" he asked.

I wanted to know the same thing. If Ferguson was pretending at being human, how had he just managed to use a relic? If he wasn't, how had he managed to hurt Moreno so badly without causing a disturbance?

Ilene said, "What?" and moved forward, pushing at James. "He just shot her!"

"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING LIKE THAT," James said, stepping back. "WHAT'S GOING ON?"

I still couldn't see through the doorway, but I could hear Ferguson laugh. "I can do this all night," he said, his formerly mellow voice now sing-song. Ilene moved to grab him, but James interceded.

"I WON'T LET YOU HURT HIM," the Malakite said, and I swore. Ferguson must have resonated James, and his newfound, falsified adoration for the Habbalite had overpowered his affection for Ilene. 

"Let _go_ of me!" Ilene shouted, but on this plane, she wasn't as strong as her friend, and James pulled her back into the apartment. I watched him clamp a hand over her mouth before they disappeared into the unlit room.

Just me and Ferguson, then. I stepped forward, over Moreno's thankfully unconscious form, and looked Ferguson straight in the eye. He was dressed the way he had been on the tape, and when he'd assaulted the police precinct, but his eyes looked wild, and he was shivering; it was a wonder he'd managed to aim for Moreno's knees. He was holding a pistol in one hand, and the object in the other, grasping it by one of its fingers. "Nervous?" I asked. He laughed again and whispered, and the Song-disturbance rattled in my skull, but I shrugged it off. "What was that meant to accomplish, Eugene?"

"Shut up! How could you resist me?" He snarled, and I felt the tendrils of his resonance try to force their way into my mind. 

"Like this," I said, and flexed my mental muscles, throwing his slime out of my brain. Those tendrils were familiar, and with a jolt I realized that I'd felt them at the night at the diner, too; I'd just thought they were natural nervousness from seeing angels unawares. I hadn't resonated myself into fear at all; he'd set me up to be terrified when he knocked on the door.

He recoiled, and I watched, fascinated, as his skin went from a fairly typical pale pink to a faint blue. In his shock, he dropped the gun - his hold on the relic, sadly, was secure - and he dropped to his knees to try to grab it again. I took advantage of his distraction to crouch and pull Detective Moreno's out of her holster. When I got the gun pointed at Ferguson, he had his again, pointed at me.

"Drop the relic," I said, my gun steadier than his.

"Get out of here, or I kill the human," he replied. His gun, I realized, wasn't aimed at me.

"What about James and Ilene?"

"I have a couple of new pets for a few days. It'll be fun." He laughed that shrill giggle. "Test subjects, too. I know what the first two fingers do, but I haven't figured out how the third works." He tapped the pointed "fingertips" of the relic against his temple. "We'll have a grand time working it out."

I rose slowly to my feet. "What do they do?" 

He did the same. "Oh, very interesting things," he said, tossing the relic in the air briefly and catching it by one of the other fingers. "The first makes it so that anything corporeal doesn't make a disturbance when it's damaged. Didn't you notice that when I shot the cop, it didn't make even the slightest sound? I wasn't sure what would happen if I killed her, though..."

"I figured you were still play-acting at being human." I shrugged.

"Play-acting!" He laughed again. "It's the only thing that's kept me going. Half the Essence, on the days I can collect at all - no support, no resources, my only role in the Symphony one I carved out for myself! But this beautiful relic will be my ticket back in."

The Discord, the desperation, the madness - "You're a Renegade," I said. "How long have you been on the run?"

"Seven years," he replied, his voice going toward a whine. "Seven years since I had to take my first Discord, seven years since I knew my lord wouldn't understand. I haven't even been able to speak his name. Always running, always hiding. Not any more! Today I go home in triumph! I've never even heard of these Songs - perhaps my lord will appreciate having them."

"How will you contact him?" My gun is still leveled at his face, but I'm not sure he notices. Nightmares knows from fear, and we know from madness, and the key to a dangerous madman is to keep him talking. Eugene Victor Ferguson was certainly a dangerous madman - the twitchiness and discoloration couldn't be his only Discord - and he was doing a wonderful job of creating a monologue.

"Oh, all I have to do is accept _two_ Essence one evening, and he'll know just where I am and how to find me. And then I'll be allowed to come home, and my sins will be forgiven." He narrowed his eyes. "How do I know you won't tell him early, and spoil my plans?" The disturbance of the Song rang out again, and again I shrugged it off; the tendrils of his resonance reached out again, and again I batted them away.

Discord and resonance. I must have been distracted by the gun, but I focused and spoke, my voice quiet but powerful. "I won't." 

He wasn't strong enough to bat _me_ away, and he nodded. And while my voice rattled in his mind, my delightful little fear took hold: a fear of the Game. "But it's too late anyway," I said again, and again my tiny inkling rooted in his mind, a fear of being found out. He shook and tried to close the door; I blocked it with my hip, standing in the doorway. "You want to drop that," I said, nodding at the relic, and a third fear seeped into his mind, an absolute terror of the relic itself. 

He shrieked and threw the relic at me, and I took my bandaged hand off the gun and winced as I caught the relic. He fired off a shot at me, but it hit the door frame instead. My shot caught his shoulder. We exchanged another set, and I grunted as I took the bullet in the thigh - _so much for these jeans_ , I thought - while mine went through his upper arm on the opposite side. The gun dropped from his nerveless hand, and he staggered back; I dropped to one knee, but kept staring him in the eye.

In desperation, heedless of the disturbance it would cause, Ferguson dissolved his vessel, revealing his unholy natural form. Blue and twitchy, scars and tattoos covering his body, one eye lidless and the other reddened, the Punisher unfolded in front of me. "Coward!" he screamed. "Challenge me! We shall see who is stronger!"

The third finger of the relic in my arms flared to life, and without thinking I handed it the Essence it was begging for. The artificial Song-disturbance hammered through my head and I sang a word in a language I didn't know, and Ferguson began to vanish, bits of him being sucked away into an unseen vortex, screaming until the last of him disappeared. His voice echoed in my ears as I very nearly collapsed, but then - impossibly - James was holding me up. 

"I SAW," he whispered in my ear. "YOU DID WELL."

I think I managed the courtesy of a smile before I passed out.

*****

When I woke up, I was in my apartment again, lying in my bed. I reached down and pressed gingerly at my leg; the wound from Ferguson's bullet was still there, and I winced at the touch, but it was wrapped in bandages and didn't feel nearly as bad as it had when I got it. With some hesitation, I swung my legs over the side and sat up.

Ilene came in from the main room. "I thought I heard you moving," she said, and took on an apologetic smile. "Neither James nor I can sing Healing, but we patched you up as best we could. James feels that it was the least we could do for you after you rescued us. He's in there now making breakfast."

Now that I paid attention, I could smell bacon and waffles. My stomach rumbled. "Moreno?" I asked.

Ilene's smile was warmer this time. "She'll be fine, if in a wheelchair for a while. I called an ambulance as soon as we were free."

"Thank you," I said. My voice was crackly, my throat dry, and Ilene came over and handed me the glass of water that was on the bedstand. I drank it gratefully, almost moaning as the gravel left my throat. "How long?"

"About a day."

I nodded. "I have to make a call," I said. "I'm sorry. Would you mind?"

Ilene laughed. "Of course. We'll be right outside if you need us."

I picked up my bedside phone and dialed my friend Zulayka's number. She picked up on the second ring. "Quite a bit of disturbance down to the south yesterday," she said, without preamble.

"Hello, Zula," I said. "I have some information you might find very useful."

"How much?" Zulayka, like others of her species, knew a deal in the making when she heard one.

"No charge," I said. "Just think of me fondly the next time you have or know something _I_ might find useful, hm?"

She laughed. "I do prefer my bargains to be formal, but I'll do my best."

I gave her Ferguson's address. "He's a renegade, on the run from the Game. Has been for seven years. He'll be reappearing sometime soon, so you may want to post a watch there." I wasn't sure how I knew that; the relic might have been a talisman as well, I supposed.

I could hear Zula's smile broaden through her voice. "If nobody shows up there?"

I sighed; I knew my Band's reputation. _My_ reputation, among those uncharitably inclined. "Then you don't owe me anything. I just thought I'd pass it along. Take care, Zula."

"You too, Laurie." I hung up the phone and grabbed an emerald bathrobe from the drawer under the receiver. I pulled it on, tied it securely, then hobbled over to the doorway.

James looked up from the stove. "I HOPE YOU LIKE BLUEBERRIES," he rumbled. Ilene smiled warmly from the kitchen table, and I made my way over.

A Malakite who wasn't trying to kill me and a Mercurian who seemed to like me - I wasn't sure this was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship, but Hell, I'd been in weirder positions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teleuphobia: The fear of death, or the fear of endings.


	10. Epilogue

The Mercurian at the reception desk looked up and at James. "She'll see you now," he said, smiling broadly. James got up, holding the box in both hands, and made his way back to the all-too-familiar office. Shifting the weight of the box, he freed a hand and knocked on the door.

"Come in," came the all-too-familiar voice. James turned the knob and pushed the door open, put both hands back on the box, and closed the door again with his foot. The office had barely changed since the last time James had been here; a few pictures had changed, and the woman behind the desk had rearranged some of the ornamentation on it. She looked up from a report as James came in. "Have a seat. I hear you have something for me."

James nodded and sat down in one of the plush chairs facing his supervisor. "IT TOOK SOME WORK, BUT YES, WE REACQUIRED IT."

She sighed and set her pen down. "Is there anything you're not telling me, Arieh?"

"THERE ARE MANY THINGS I'M NOT TELLING YOU, MICAIAH."

"So you don't think it's necessary to report that you had to work with a demon in order to get the relic back? A Balseraph, no less? A Balseraph of _Nightmares_?" 

James raised one eyebrow. "I DO NOT. THE AIM WAS ACCOMPLISHED. I DIDN'T BREAK MY WORD OR GO BACK ON AN AGREEMENT. SHE BELIEVED THAT THE RELIC WOULD BE HERS ONCE OUR VENTURE WAS COMPLETE, BUT I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT MISAPPREHENSION."

"You're consorting with demons, Arieh. What about your oaths? 'I will not suffer an evil to live--'"

James was on his feet before "live" left her lips. He could feel fire in his eyes and cheeks, but didn't care. "I KNOW MY OATHS BETTER THAN ANY CHERUB, MICAIAH. I AM NOT DISSONANT. DO YOU DOUBT MY HONOR? IF I SAY THAT I HAVE NOT SUFFERED AN EVIL TO LIVE, YOU MAY BE QUITE SURE THAT I HAVE NOT."

Micaiah barely blinked, but she did nod. "Very well. I trust you to know when you're crossing a line, and what to do if you do. Is that the relic?"

James breathed deeply and set the box down on her desk. "IT IS. NOBODY HAS TOUCHED IT SINCE I RECOVERED IT. QUITE A DANGEROUS LITTLE THING."

"Oh, indeed." Micaiah took the box and set it behind her desk. Then she reached out and touched James's hand, and he could feel the Essence pour into his body. "As promised."

"I'LL DELIVER PILVI'S SHARE TO HER WHEN I SEE HER."

Micaiah nodded. "Good enough for me. That's all for now, Arieh." James nodded and turned to leave when she spoke again. "You're sure?"

James paused at the door, then smiled, where she couldn't see it. "I AM SURE, MICAIAH. NOBODY WHO LIKES BLUEBERRY PANCAKES CAN BE TRULY EVIL."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the double post. Apparently "Discard Draft" here means "get rid of the whole thing" when you're editing a chapter.


End file.
